ZERO TOLERANCE FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE? THEN PROVE IT.
Law enforcement says it has zero tolerance.
Prosecutors say they take domestic violence seriously.
Family courts say the safety of children and victims comes first.
CPS says it protects children from abuse.
But what happens when the system itself becomes the place where the victim is no longer believed, the evidence is minimized, and the perpetrator learns that accountability is negotiable?
Let’s stop confusing policies with practices.
A department can have a domestic-violence policy and still fail a victim.
A prosecutor can say, “We take these cases seriously,” while declining to pursue a case because it is inconvenient, difficult, politically unpopular, or unlikely to produce a conviction.
A family court can claim that the child’s best interests are paramount while giving inadequate weight to documented patterns of coercive control, intimidation, threats, stalking, or abuse.
CPS can claim to protect children while sometimes becoming more focused on investigating the parent who reports the abuse than thoroughly examining the conduct being reported.
And when these systems fail independently, they can create something even more dangerous:
SYSTEMIC FAILURE.
The victim reports the abuse.
Law enforcement documents it—or doesn’t.
The prosecutor decides whether to pursue it.
CPS makes its determination.
Family court considers the record.
Then the next system looks at the previous system’s decision and assumes:
“Someone already investigated this.”
And suddenly, an allegation that was never adequately investigated becomes a “lack of evidence.”
A failure to act becomes a finding that nothing happened.
A perpetrator’s denial becomes “conflicting accounts.”
A victim’s trauma becomes “credibility concerns.”
And the person who caused the danger can sometimes walk away appearing more credible than the person who survived it.
That is not zero tolerance.
That is a system capable of creating the illusion of accountability without actually delivering it.
And let me be very clear:
I am not saying every police officer, prosecutor, CPS worker, attorney, or judge fails victims. Many work extraordinarily hard to protect them.
I am saying that no institution should be allowed to declare itself “zero tolerance” simply because its policy says so.
Zero tolerance should be measured by outcomes, consistency, investigative integrity, evidence-based decision-making, transparency, and accountability.
Because a system should not get credit for saying it protects victims.
It should be judged by what happens to the victim after she asks for help.
If reporting abuse results in greater scrutiny of the victim than the alleged perpetrator…
If children are placed in situations where documented safety concerns are dismissed…
If evidence is minimized because the abuse did not leave a bruise…
If perpetrators discover that manipulating the system is easier than accepting responsibility…
Then we have a serious question to answer:
ZERO TOLERANCE FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE—OR ZERO TOLERANCE FOR BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR SYSTEM FAILURE?
Policies don’t protect victims.
People do.
Systems do.
And accountability does.
— Dr. Kathie Mathis, Psy.D., D.D.
Abuse • Trauma • Victimology • Forensic Psychology